Imago Dei - the face of Gd.
I recently picked up a book for our religious kitsch bathroom called "Look it's Jesus." It is an edgy book filled with the stories of people finding the image of Gd, Jesus, Mary, Mother Theresa, ... (you get the drift) in a wide variety of place. I noted on Facebook that my personal favorite is couch stain Jesus, I am ashamed to say this selection makes me belly laugh. Still I am fascinated I may have laughed hard and heartily when we initially found the book and flipped through the variety of images but I am fascinated that there is a book dedicated to our human longing to find images of Gd all around us. (I am also fascinated by the fact that people can see draped bearded faces in just about everything.)
I to want to see Gd peeking out at me from things as familiar as my food and my living space though that has not ever happened in the way the book describes. I think it would make me feel special and surrounded, perhaps even protected by the essence of Gd. Now I am not sure that I need protection, still my world can seem like a scary scary place. I am not always sure that I belong. I am certain that I am often not enough. I have been convinced that my work alone will not transform those I love or dislike. I believe in a transcendent force (lets call it Gd for the ease of conversation) that is ever evolving and ever calling me to my best self. Believing in a Gd so present to me that Gd shows up early in the morning as I prepare for the mundane life. I often live is a point of potential. Suddenly my life holds within it the possibility of transcendence. In seeing Gd for a moment I am pulled away and reminded of that presence that I lean into during good worship or meditation is there, is here, is now.
This silly and profound book that in an oddly respectful way shows a number of different "sightings" of Gd in our world speaks to me of my need to be in relationship. Relationship with both the world in which I live and with Gd. Not separately, but in a way that is surprisingly integrated and whole. All of this got me to thinking about Imago Dei in a very different way...
Imago Dei - the face of Gd, we are created in his image. Yes my friends when you start talking Imago language Gd is usually a he... you know Adam and all. Usually a man and usually the depicted in the dominant culture - white. Apparently there is power in believing that Gd looks like us. There is power in that subtle affirmation. We may have fallen from the grace of the garden but - and this is an important but - we still look like our creator. We are kin. We are children. We are beloved. And we look for affirmations of that connection in our everyday life as well as in our religious practices.
We might ponder what it means when this image - this including and reflective image - is only depicted in the dominant culture. Who is included in the work/ in the world of Gd? In justice work, there is often an appeal to shift the face of Gd from only affirming the dominant culture. Liberation theology, the notion that Jesus' good news is actually more significantly directed at the impoverished and maligned, the outsider and the foreign within our midst, also holds examples of reclaiming the image of the face of Gd as the outsider. Liberation theology grabs hold of Gd's face and says - look - Gd is ours as well. Jesus would have looked more like Mohammed than someone attending Woodstock in the late 1960's. Images of a dark skinned Gd invite those long left as children of a lesser Gd. A Gd with a broad powerful nose, curly hair, stout figure and brown eyes abound act as a radical reminder of whom Gd is in relationship with.
Still this claim to Gd's image being non-traditional remains a divider, a place of separateness, a weapon of authority. If Gd is us than he is not YOU.
Gd created man in his image.
I wonder if we too narrowly define what image means. If Gd created us in Gd's image - was the image of a face at all. Was the image of an emerging star a cosmic light, a single celled organism, the angler fish in the depth of our seas.
I wonder if Gd made us of the very stuff of Gd. Image as replica. Image as kin and as part of and as creation. I wonder if Gd created us as Gd. That which exists in all things, that which connects all things, that which holds all things together - this is my personal definition of Gd. Not a definition that can easily be found as a reminder in food or ashtrays but a definition that takes me beyond the tribalism that I hear in so many religious traditions. Not generally within the mystical arms but that is a story for another day.
Am I, are you the image of Gd?
Earlier last year a small particle was finally "seen" by physicists underneath the French mountains. This particle initially dubbed the "god particle" known now more formally as the Higgs-Boson particle, is the stuff of life. It is the hope that we are not made up primarily of space - no more spectacularly we are made up of potential.
Am I are you the image of Gd?
What if we gave up the notion that the creator said yes you look like me, as if this was a photo recognition exercise.
What if we claimed we look like the creator because we are made of creator.
What if all of this amazing universe is connected in by this potential - peeking out at us from everywhere in everything.
Go ahead look for the face of Jesus, but look for the Andromeda galaxy.
None of this is new, I know, nothing really is - what is new is perhaps our understanding that we have the potential to be the stars -or- we are the stars waiting for the potential to be human.
What a precious gift life, to be able to look and see in the simplest places the transcendent nature of Gd. What a gift to be reminded that finding Gd can be filled with peels of laughter and tears of joy. What a gift for me to remember Gd calls to me - not from far away - but from the very air that I breath. Be - be all that you can be - I am waiting for your potential to unfold.
I recently picked up a book for our religious kitsch bathroom called "Look it's Jesus." It is an edgy book filled with the stories of people finding the image of Gd, Jesus, Mary, Mother Theresa, ... (you get the drift) in a wide variety of place. I noted on Facebook that my personal favorite is couch stain Jesus, I am ashamed to say this selection makes me belly laugh. Still I am fascinated I may have laughed hard and heartily when we initially found the book and flipped through the variety of images but I am fascinated that there is a book dedicated to our human longing to find images of Gd all around us. (I am also fascinated by the fact that people can see draped bearded faces in just about everything.)
I to want to see Gd peeking out at me from things as familiar as my food and my living space though that has not ever happened in the way the book describes. I think it would make me feel special and surrounded, perhaps even protected by the essence of Gd. Now I am not sure that I need protection, still my world can seem like a scary scary place. I am not always sure that I belong. I am certain that I am often not enough. I have been convinced that my work alone will not transform those I love or dislike. I believe in a transcendent force (lets call it Gd for the ease of conversation) that is ever evolving and ever calling me to my best self. Believing in a Gd so present to me that Gd shows up early in the morning as I prepare for the mundane life. I often live is a point of potential. Suddenly my life holds within it the possibility of transcendence. In seeing Gd for a moment I am pulled away and reminded of that presence that I lean into during good worship or meditation is there, is here, is now.
This silly and profound book that in an oddly respectful way shows a number of different "sightings" of Gd in our world speaks to me of my need to be in relationship. Relationship with both the world in which I live and with Gd. Not separately, but in a way that is surprisingly integrated and whole. All of this got me to thinking about Imago Dei in a very different way...
Imago Dei - the face of Gd, we are created in his image. Yes my friends when you start talking Imago language Gd is usually a he... you know Adam and all. Usually a man and usually the depicted in the dominant culture - white. Apparently there is power in believing that Gd looks like us. There is power in that subtle affirmation. We may have fallen from the grace of the garden but - and this is an important but - we still look like our creator. We are kin. We are children. We are beloved. And we look for affirmations of that connection in our everyday life as well as in our religious practices.
We might ponder what it means when this image - this including and reflective image - is only depicted in the dominant culture. Who is included in the work/ in the world of Gd? In justice work, there is often an appeal to shift the face of Gd from only affirming the dominant culture. Liberation theology, the notion that Jesus' good news is actually more significantly directed at the impoverished and maligned, the outsider and the foreign within our midst, also holds examples of reclaiming the image of the face of Gd as the outsider. Liberation theology grabs hold of Gd's face and says - look - Gd is ours as well. Jesus would have looked more like Mohammed than someone attending Woodstock in the late 1960's. Images of a dark skinned Gd invite those long left as children of a lesser Gd. A Gd with a broad powerful nose, curly hair, stout figure and brown eyes abound act as a radical reminder of whom Gd is in relationship with.
Still this claim to Gd's image being non-traditional remains a divider, a place of separateness, a weapon of authority. If Gd is us than he is not YOU.
Gd created man in his image.
I wonder if we too narrowly define what image means. If Gd created us in Gd's image - was the image of a face at all. Was the image of an emerging star a cosmic light, a single celled organism, the angler fish in the depth of our seas.
I wonder if Gd made us of the very stuff of Gd. Image as replica. Image as kin and as part of and as creation. I wonder if Gd created us as Gd. That which exists in all things, that which connects all things, that which holds all things together - this is my personal definition of Gd. Not a definition that can easily be found as a reminder in food or ashtrays but a definition that takes me beyond the tribalism that I hear in so many religious traditions. Not generally within the mystical arms but that is a story for another day.
Am I, are you the image of Gd?
Earlier last year a small particle was finally "seen" by physicists underneath the French mountains. This particle initially dubbed the "god particle" known now more formally as the Higgs-Boson particle, is the stuff of life. It is the hope that we are not made up primarily of space - no more spectacularly we are made up of potential.
Am I are you the image of Gd?
What if we gave up the notion that the creator said yes you look like me, as if this was a photo recognition exercise.
What if we claimed we look like the creator because we are made of creator.
What if all of this amazing universe is connected in by this potential - peeking out at us from everywhere in everything.
Go ahead look for the face of Jesus, but look for the Andromeda galaxy.
None of this is new, I know, nothing really is - what is new is perhaps our understanding that we have the potential to be the stars -or- we are the stars waiting for the potential to be human.
What a precious gift life, to be able to look and see in the simplest places the transcendent nature of Gd. What a gift to be reminded that finding Gd can be filled with peels of laughter and tears of joy. What a gift for me to remember Gd calls to me - not from far away - but from the very air that I breath. Be - be all that you can be - I am waiting for your potential to unfold.
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